The Unfallen/Affinity
}} Affinity Traits Unique Mechanics Guardians These are a special population type only accessible via curiosity exploration. They're described in detail in the Population Traits section. Celestial Vines The Unfallen completely replace the normal colonization mechanic. In order to colonize planets, they need to create a special entity viewable on the galactic map, called a Celestial Vine. Starting from their home system, these "vines" are able to extend to nearby systems; this works by performing a special action to "add" a new system to the network of vines; once it's added, if any nearby systems are in range, a "vine" will extend out to them from every nearby system that's also vined. Once a system has been vined, you can instantly colonize a planet (that you have the colonization tech for) on it immediately and without any cost. You don't need to have a ship in orbit to do this last colonization step, and it costs no resources (critically; unlike other factions, you do not consume your ship). It instantly turns from an outpost into a full colony, so you neither have to take the food hit for a developing outpost, nor do you have to wait. Vineships Vining is accomplished via special vineships. You move these guys into a star node you'd like to vine, you start the vining process (a unique button similar to probe exploration), and if they manage to continue doing it for the required number of turns, the system will be vined (once vined, it stays vined, but if you're interrupted at any point, or stop at any point, your % progress will rapidly decay, being lost in roughly half the time it took to build up). It is worth mentioning again (since ship consumption is so universal of a mechanic for colonization) that at no point in the process are your vineships "used up/consumed" - this is one of the benefits of playing Unfallen. Stacking multiple copies of vineships, in a single fleet, divides the time taken to vine. On normal speed the default is 20 turns, two vineships drops that to 10, 3 drop it to 5, etc. A large group of them can vine in one turn, but it always takes at least one turn. Note that they must be in the same fleet for this effect to take place. Note that a fleet in the midst of vining can pause, add more members, and immediately resume vining without losing progress. Vine Benefits Vines provide a number of buffs - a system that has been vined will receive bonus (TODO: document exactly what you get). Vines also accelerate movement of both civilian and military ships - by about double. This applies not only to movement on starlanes, but also to off-starlane travel (i.e. "Warp"/"Free Movement"), as long as it's tracing the path of a vine. Vining Special Nodes The Unfallen cannot merely vine nodes with planets in them, but also "special nodes" like Nebulas, Black Holes, and Asteroid Fields; upon doing so, the resource bonuses of the node are applied only to your home system, not to the closest system. Influence and Territory Celestials Vines also replace the normal mechanic of having a large circle around your systems indicating "owned territory". Instead, systems which are vined are considered within your influence circle, and systems which aren't, are outside it. This means that a vined system is susceptible to "pacific conversion" once the Unfallen have the technology to do that. Minor Faction Assimilation In order to assimilate a minor faction, the Unfallen must first vine their system. The Unfallen can interact with them and spend influence on them beforehand, but cannot complete the assimilation step by either quest or buyout. (Most likely this is a check-and-balance against the Unfallen's staggering growth, since they would otherwise grab almost every minor they encountered long before any other factions would have a chance). Vines range Vines range is 23 units. Fixed Colonization Speed As a sort of side-effect, not directly related to the celestial vines mechanic, but thematically related, the Unfallen don't consume to colonize planets on a system they already inhabit, i.e., one where they already inhabit a single planet, and are trying to expand to other planets in the system by queuing a build command in the system management UI. Instead of consuming , it just consumes a fixed number of turns (like a luxury-based "System Development Upgrade"). Fertile worlds consume 1 turn, non-fertile/non-sterile worlds consume 2, sterile worlds consume 3, and gas planets consume 4. For brand-new systems with no population, this is a powerful asset because planets that would take other factions perhaps 15 turns to colonize on a new system take only 2 or 3 for the Unfallen. This becomes slightly counter-productive if a system is highly populated and has high , but often will only cost "a turn more than usual" in the worst-case, and ends up costing "several turns less" in most cases. Population Traits By having the "Guardians" trait, the Unfallen effectively have two primary populations. Unfallen Guardians Unlike your primary population, Guardians will never grow "naturally" via , nor starve. They can be created by moving an exploration ship over a planet that has a "Guardian" curiosity, and exploring the curiosity. You can't explore it via a system project, like regular curiosities, for some reason. Guardians can be explored on planets which are not colonized, and the result is very inconsistent; sometimes I've explored one, colonized the planet, and received a Guardian; other times I've done it, and once I colonized the planet, there was no Guardian. I'm not sure if there's an internal mechanic governing it (like a hidden "colonize in X turns or it's gone" rule, or if it's different for "creating an outpost and letting it turn into a colony" versus "colonizing another planet in an already-colonized system". If anyone has more information on this, please fill us in. Right now I'm not inclined to chance it in regular gameplay, so I only bother revealing Guardians when I've fully colonized the planet. Guardians seem to spawn on specifically Boreal, Forest, Jungle, Monsoon, Terran, and Toxic planets (confirmed in-game). Guardians are immobile. They cannot be moved between planets or systems; they're stuck on the planet they were spawned on, forever. Guardians create their own extra, dedicated population slot on the planet. They don't "use up" a population slot that's already present. If the guardian is destroyed, this population slot is lost. (Note that if a planet exceeds 14 pop slots, the max allowed by the game, this stops creating an additional slot, and the Guardian will be in contention for one of those 14 slots). Guardians can be deliberately removed via a special "Guardian Sacrifice" system action that takes a whopping 5 turns on normal speed. It gives +20 for a modest chunk of time (10 turns?), and ... there's no reason you'd ever want to do this. It consumes a very large amount of time in your production queue, the boost is pretty mediocre, and you lose the massive bonus you get from having a Guardian. This mechanic most likely exists not for the Unfallen themselves per se, but for other factions, since some factions like Horatio might actually develop higher-yield population units than Guardians and also have enough pop slots to overcome the normally free slot it creates for itself. Other factions have a slightly altered version of this ability which takes twice(?) as long. Guardians can be revealed "onto" other empires when you're playing Unfallen, even if they're not. They receive the Guardian instead of you. Friendly AI factions will even have unique text responses for this, usually expressing their delight. This empire will receive the benefits/maluses based on your relationship. Remember that even factions which are not Unfallen have a slightly altered version of the "Guardian Sacrifice" ability, to destroy the Guardian (it takes them many more turns than the Unfallen version, to discourage them from doing it), so beware of using this as an -reducing weapon because your opponent may (if pressed) choose to destroy it. In very rare cases, you can receive Guardians when you are playing a non-custom faction other than Unfallen; there's a very rare curiosity that will reveal all curiosities in a system, including the hidden "Guardian" ones you're not allowed to interact with as that faction. This is incredibly niche, but it's fun if it happens. Note: I believe the way the "if owner is enemy/friend of" trait works is based on whether the faction has the Guardians trait, not whether it has Guardian populations. It definitely self-applies even if you've contacted no one yet, at the beginning of the game. You'll have at least one guardian on Koyasil, so this gives a massive boost to right at the start of the game. Honor Bound: '''If you're playing as an "Honor Bound" faction (i.e., Hissho), the +5 is replaced with +10 , and the 10 Guardian collection bonus becomes +10% . Guardian Guides There's a population quest you can get, for collecting Unfallen pops, which can potentially convert one of them into a special variant of a Guardian. It cannot reproduce, so you only ever get one (and thus, it has no collection bonus). It has the same political alignment as a regular Guardian. The flat bonuses from it are 300 damage to attackers, +10 , and 30 for the modifiers instead of 20. If you're "Honor Bound", this is +20 instead of the . Special Guardian Law Precept for Peace and Prosperity As Harmony and good will pervade planets and systems that contain Guardian populations, political actions that promote peaceful relations become easier to enact. This law codifies Guardian ideas of harmonious connections when handling xenodiplomacy. '''Notes: You have to achieve 20 Guardian population across your empire to unlock this. Strategically, the nice thing about this law is that although it eats up a law slot, in practice, it doesn't. You rarely need to enact diplomatic deals, but they're quite expensive when you do; so when you need one, turn this law on, enact the deal, and then turn it off. Note also that this affects minor faction interaction costs, including the luxury-resource cost of their special actions. Political Traits Unfallen Guardians Ships Entwiner = Strategic Implications = The Unfallen don't get colony ships. One of their major faction traits, "Celestial Vines", replaces that, and it's enabled by this ship. These ships are hideously expensive compared to colony ships (their price may or may not boost for each one you've previously produced, I need to test that, but I'm looking at it in-game right now, and they're precisely 10x the cost of a regular faction's colony ship). The main draw behind this is that they're reusable, unlike colony ships. Since one slot's dedicated to the vining module, you can have only one engine, so these are slow. The defense slots help offset their fragility, but generally speaking you really, really want to protect these because they're expensive. Explorer = Strategic Implications = This is very similar to the United Empire scout ship, albeit trading one attack slot for one defense slot. As a "pure exploration" ship this has below-par potential, since you only have two utility slots. You will never be very fast compared to other faction's scout ships, and you'll be even slower if you equip any probes. However, this ship has the potential to have up to 3 defense slots, and 1 attack slot. It's a very solid fighting ship you can field without having to research the actual combat ship technologies, available immediately at the start of the game. Attacker = Strategic Implications = This is a fairly well-rounded ship; it leans slightly towards defense modules rather than attack. It's basically identical to the United Empire version but with one of the attack modules traded for defense. Only 2 potential engine slots. Protector = Strategic Implications = This ship can equip a lot of defense modules, and only one weapon. All the protector ships in a flotilla have to die before enemy attacker ships will start shooting at your attackers, so these guys can actually take advantage of that mechanic by genuinely being tanky. 4 potential engine slots, two of which require the upgrade. Much like the United Empire, your Protector could potentially have 4 engines, but the Attacker can only have 2. Coordinator = Strategic Implications = Somewhat light on the attack until you get the upgrade. Can mount 3 squadrons, one of which requires the upgrade; this is above-average. Can equip 4 engines, none of which require the upgrade. Hunter = Strategic Implications = Starts off considerably biased towards durability with only limited firepower. Ends up reasonably balanced. Quite slow, due to only being able to equip two engines. Carrier = Strategic Implications = Has a lot of defensive modules, potentially 8. Can field up to 4 squadrons, though 2 require the upgrade. Can have up to four engines, though 2 require the upgrade.